[-empyre-] Not digital! Analog computing and PRACTICE

[Dragan Espenschied]

On Sun, Oct 12, 2014 at 9:34 PM, Quinn DuPont <isaac.q.dupont at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
> It’s late in the day, and late in the week, but there are still a few
> threads intriguing me. Most especially, the “opposite” of this month’s
> theme: analog.
>
> The discussion of analog vs./and/or digital discussed by everyone, but
> especially Ange Albertini, Andres Ramirez Gaviria, and John Hopkins, really
> exposes the intricacies and thorny issues present. At times the distinction
> becomes a purely technical one based on sampling, or a social one that
> responds to — and resists — production, or even a personal one invested in
> “creativity” or “innovation”. I’m reminded of Wendy Chun’s (“Programmed
> Visions”, p. 146 ff) mathematical and technical description of
> sophisticated early analog computers, especially the differential analyzer.
> She writes, “intriguingly, direct representation — or more accurately
> correspondence — makes analog machines live, vivid, and direct.” In
> contrast, digital computers, “by hiding mimesis, could simulate any other
> machines… [but,] the [digital] computer becomes a simulacrum, rather than a
> simulation.” I find Chun’s perspective so refreshing because it makes a
> case for analog computing not just because they are faster (they are,
> depending on how you “count”), but simply because they are more *real*. The
> downside of digital objects is precisely that they aren’t really for
> humans, or, perhaps, even about human things. Ashley’s Scarlett’s worry
> that these processes occur outside of human perception, and the discussions
> of PRACTICE throughout the week, seem to be entirely cognizant of this
> deficiency. Perhaps we need to think more seriously about analog computing!
> <http://empyre.library.cornell.edu>


Hi Quinn, everybody,

I know I am late to this re: PRACTICE as well, but let me try to share my
perspective on this:

There is apparently a huge desire to make the digital tangible, and most
times it has been done it is tacky (think, calendars, address books,
telephones, even printers or old computer terminals, all represented on
screen). The simulacrum digital computers seem to be created for doesn't
exist by nature, it is a mode of operation created to fulfill a desire.
(Hartmut Winkler called this "Wunschkonstellationen".)

But there seems to be no connection between the simplest, core operations
of a computer, and the other end, the fulfillment and embodiment of
desires. That's what makes them so alien. It is not so much a *hiding* of
the true ongoings, or any idea of truth, but the fact that they are not
hidden, or it doesn't matter. The experience is still fully digital, and a
younger generation approaches and understands it quite differently.

"The analog" is not more real or tangible though, and I think describing
the digital as a pixelated version of reality is already defined by the
desire to have the computer create a (better) world humans can inhabit.
(Music was once assigned a similar hope.)

Bests,
Dragan



-- 
Dragan Espenschied
Digital Conservator
Rhizome
at the New Museum
235 Bowery
New York, NY 10002
212-219-1288 x 304
http://www.rhizome.org/
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